UPDATE: Divers find body of second fisherman drowned in Esopus Creek

MARBLETOWN — A two-day search for two men who drowned while fishing in the Esopus Creek concluded Wednesday as divers recovered the second victim’s body.

State police said the body of Kenneth Garland, 47, was found just after 11 a.m. The body of his friend Jeffrey Galloway, 39, was found nearby Tuesday afternoon. Both men were from Lake Katrine.

State police said Garland, Galloway and a third man, Kristopher Quinn, 38, of High Falls, were fishing in the creek a short distance south of Fording Place Road around 4:30 Memorial Day afternoon. While walking across the rapids, Garland was swept away by the current, which was stronger than usual.

While Quinn tried to save him, Galloway also was swept downstream by the current, police said.Both men’s bodies were taken to Kingston Hospital, where autopsies are scheduled to be performed Thursday.

Mike Randall

MARBLETOWN — A two-day search for two men who drowned while fishing in the Esopus Creek concluded Wednesday as divers recovered the second victim’s body.

State police said the body of Kenneth Garland, 47, was found just after 11 a.m. The body of his friend Jeffrey Galloway, 39, was found nearby Tuesday afternoon. Both men were from Lake Katrine.

State police said Garland, Galloway and a third man, Kristopher Quinn, 38, of High Falls, were fishing in the creek a short distance south of Fording Place Road around 4:30 Memorial Day afternoon. While walking across the rapids, Garland was swept away by the current, which was stronger than usual.

While Quinn tried to save him, Galloway also was swept downstream by the current, police said.Both men’s bodies were taken to Kingston Hospital, where autopsies are scheduled to be performed Thursday.

Before her father’s body was found, Garland’s daughter Marissa was still hopeful he’d be found alive.She said her father was usually “playing baseball and fishing when he wasn’t working” with her uncle in his roofing business — “a diehard Mets fan and a diehard Cowboys fan,” she said.

“He’s been fishing for as long as I’ve been alive,” Marissa Garland said, and he’d fished that spot on the creek before.

Reza Vandunk knew Galloway more than 20 years. At the scene Wednesday, he still was trying to cope with his friend’s fate.

Like Garland, Galloway had moved up here from Brooklyn, and he made friends easily, Vandunk said.Vandunk, too, is a lifelong fisherman, but he thinks officials should post the spot where his friend and Garland died and not allow fishing, swimming and other activities there.

“That’s a very dangerous spot,” he said, and the depth changes quickly. “I would never fish there. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

There have been several drownings on local waterways in the past week as the weather warmed up. Besides the two on the Esopus, a 71-year-old man drowned on the Delaware River Saturday afternoon, and an 18-year-old boy drowned in Wappingers Creek in Dutchess County on Tuesday. None of the four victims wore a life jacket, according to authorities.

State police Senior Investigator Peter Kusminsky said it’s always a good idea to wear a life jacket when you’re in or near a body of water, especially “if you’re going into areas you’re not familiar with.”

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